Habermas' Public Sphere

The claim that the Internet can lead to a greater democratization of
society is founded on tenets of unlimited access to
information and equal
participation in cultural discourse. But will this
inundation of texts and
voices lead to anarchic, rather than democratic, forms of communication?
To put it another way, does discourse on the Internet lead to a completely
postmodern
world in which multiple centers compete with one another in a debate
which
can only lead to complete divergence and fragmentation?

Like the postmodernists, Jurgen Habermas hopes to create a dialogue which
occurs outside of the realm of government and the economy. But Habermas'
public sphere model attempts to thwart postmodern, chaotic
dissipation
by
reinstalling Enlightenment values of reason and freedom
into a modern discourse
which aims at pragmatic consensus. In the public sphere, Habermas
says, discourse becomes democratic through the "non-coercively unifying,
consensus building force of a discourse in which participants overcome their
at first subjectively biased views in favor of a rationally motivated
agreement (Public Discourse 315)." By looking to rationality, he
hopes
to
produce democratic judgements which can have universal application while
remaining anchored within the practical realm of discourse among individuals.

Habermas posits that the participants in his political sphere shall share
shared assumptions about communicative practice. These assumptions
are
produced by an Enlightenment notion of reason which is characteristic of democracy- it is this rationality which makes decisions formulated in discourse
binding .(Ess 240) In addition, Habermas lists certain criterion of
freedom
and equality which are necessary for an "ideal speech
situation" to occur
in a democratic polity.